The Liar's Sister (ARC)

by Sarah A. Denzil

  ‘Stop that,’ she snaps. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Bob! Bob!’

  ‘I need to check you don’t have her,’ I say, admittedly in a slightly deranged way.

  ‘Why would we have your slut of a sister here?’ Mrs Campbell shouts, pushing the door back with surprising force for an older woman.

  But it’s when I see her husband that I give in and back away. He comes to the door, visible through the gap I’ve managed to prise open, with a shotgun in his hand. My blood runs cold. Was he the one in the woods? Is that my father’s gun? My eyes search the dark wood for any identifying marks, but I can’t remember it well enough to say for certain.

  ‘Go on back to your own house now, Heather,’ he says. ‘You’re safe there. You’re not safe out here.’

  With almost robotic movements, I twist on my heel, move away from the neighbours I’ve known my entire life, who I thought were good people, and make my way back to my parents’ cottage. The last of my resilience saps away.

  * * *

  Darkness spreads into the house until I can’t bear it any more. I plod through each room closing the curtains, switching on every light. Dad would be furious about the use of all this electricity.

  Rosie’s phone continues to go to voicemail. I text Peter about the strange altercation with the neighbours, but he must be busy too. I retreat to the living room to bite my fingernails and stare at the television screen as the programmes move into evening viewing.

  Ten p.m. comes and there’s still no sign of Rosie. My wild mind won’t stop conjuring images of her broken body in the woods. My sixteen-year-old self bends down to collect the bracelet tangled up in the bluebells, but instead I find her hair, which leads me to the rest of her, laid out with glassy, unfocused eyes staring up at me.

  What is wrong with me?

  I curl up on the sofa, too afraid to go to sleep. My phone is in my hand, plugged in for extra battery power, and I can’t tear my eyes away from the screen. What if the Campbells are more violent than I’ve ever imagined? Another image flashes before my eyes. This time it’s Mr Campbell shooting Rosie in the chest with the shotgun.

  This isn’t who I am. I’m not the one with the wild imagination. Rosie is the writer; I’m just plain old Heather. Apart from my Buckthorpe Jack dream, I don’t have insane nightmares. Life is regular to me. There’s a logic to everything that does and doesn’t happen. Whatever strange occurrences there are in the world, there are always mundane explanations. Samuel disappeared because Rosie killed him and buried his body. I force the thought away and focus.

  My sister lies. Does my sister kill? Did she hide Dad’s gun in the woods? The thoughts keep coming. Did she write the note and slip it beneath the door? I have no idea what she is thinking …

  I screw my eyes shut and rock back and forth on the sofa. I’m emotional, tired and making mistakes. I need to think about this logically. It was me who left first this morning. She would have needed to hurry through the woods to overtake me and then shoot at me. Unless she has an accomplice … She knows the woods just as well as me. She also knows that I always stop at the bluebell field for a few minutes, which might have given her enough time to find a shortcut to Jack’s cottage and get there before me.

  Which leads me to her motivation. If she was trying to frighten me, it would make sense that none of the shots would hit me. I can’t say for certain that none were aimed at me, because I don’t know enough about the sound of bullets when they come close, but I know that the first one seemed to be a warning shot. She knows that I’m dragging my feet about the potential sale. She knows me well enough to guess that I’m fantasising about staying here. She also knows that I can’t afford to buy her out. She wants me to sell the house.

  But the house was left to both of us. Surely she could force me to sell through lawyers? That would take time, though. What if she needs money now? What if she owes someone money? There’s so much I don’t know about my sister.

  I start to pace my way around the room, stomach churning up sour bile. She knows I’m close to finding out the truth about her involvement in Samuel’s disappearance.

  I stop moving. Have I truly considered the implications of that, though? If Rosie is the person behind everything, then that could mean she wants me dead.

  I start pacing again, chewing on a thumbnail, appalled by my own thoughts and yet unable to deny that they make some sort of sense. A gunshot in the woods could be put down to a hunting accident. There is the occasional poacher in Buckbell, though they’d be completely stupid to go near the path or poach in broad daylight. Maybe her plan was to keep hold of the gun, leave my body and feign innocence with some sort of phoney alibi.

  God, no. Am I truly thinking this? My damaged, funny, smart sister surely would never try to harm me.

  When there’s a scraping at the door, a scream rips from my throat. I bend over, clutching my neck, desperately trying to calm my thudding heart. I hurry through into the kitchen as a wet-haired Rosie rushes in.

  ‘Heather.’ She grabs me by the shoulders and I flinch away from her. I’ve never seen her this wild-eyed. Her eye sockets are dark with mascara stains. Her freezing fingers dig into my bony shoulders. ‘I’ve figured out what I have to do to make everything right.’

  Despite the fear, it’s disappointment that hits me the hardest when I smell the alcohol on her breath. She’s been drinking.

  She pulls a piece of paper from her jacket pocket and slaps it down on the sofa.

  ‘I found your letter,’ she says.

  My heart sinks when I see the first line: You’ll never read this. Not while I’m still breathing.

  Twenty-Seven

  Rosie

  Then

  I was lucky that Heather had always been a heavy sleeper. I found that I could read with the light on, get up to go to the toilet, or send text messages with the sound on without her even stirring from her slumber. On the other hand, I was constantly woken by her sleepwalking and snoring. I never told her that the sleepwalking started again after we began sharing a room. But I found an easy way to stop her leaving. I just put a hand on her shoulder and led her back to bed.

  She fell asleep quickly that night, with one earphone from her iPod still in place, the Cure playing quietly. I knew the playlist because it was one Samuel had made for her. The thought still makes me feel ill even now.

  Even though I knew she wouldn’t wake, I still tiptoed over to the window and gently opened it as wide as it would go. I knew the routine by heart now. One hop to get me up, then a swing of my legs to get out, followed by a second hop down. I propped the window open a few inches with the casement stay. Then I glanced up to check that no lights had gone on, or that no parents were visible in the upstairs windows, ready to bollock me for sneaking out.

  It seemed the coast was clear.

  I checked my phone and sent another text to say that I was about to set off into the woods. We were meeting at the bluebell field.

  My heart was racing. I had no idea if I was doing the right thing, but it was too late to back out now. It began to rain. I pulled up my hood and set off into the dark.

  I knew that he would be waiting for me.

  Twenty-Eight

  Heather

  Now

  Rosie slumps down on the sofa, still in her coat and shoes. She picks up the letter again and holds it in front of me.

  ‘When I first found it, I wanted to drink myself to death,’ she says. ‘But I went to a meeting instead.’

  I want to interrupt her and point out that she’s drunk now, but I don’t. I give her a minute to explain herself. She seems upset and disorderly, but right now she doesn’t seem dangerous.

  ‘Do you honestly think any of this is a surprise to me?’ she says, brandishing my own words in my direction. ‘I’ve known all along that you never believed me. I’ve known all along that you still love him, which is gross, Heather. You didn’t exactly make it hard for me to find out. You went for your secret tryst in the woods. You
carried on reading the books he lent you and listening to the playlists he made you. God, Hev. Why him? Out of everyone, why him?’

  My voice is small when I reply. ‘We were the same, him and me. No one else understood us.’

  She lets out a derisive laugh, her eyes glazed over. Finally she throws the letter down. ‘I always thought you suspected I was involved. When he disappeared, you let your guard down, though I don’t think you realised. Your disgust for me was plain. We barely talked between that night and when I left for university, did we?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘That’s why I spent all my time going out in Ingledown instead of studying. Ruined my A levels and barely scraped into my last-choice uni. Ruined my life, basically.’

  ‘I’m sorry this happened to us,’ I say.

  ‘So am I,’ she says. She leans forwards and rubs her eyes, before jumping to her feet and striding over to me, her hands outstretched. She grasps my shoulders again. ‘I need to take you into the woods. I need to explain it all to you, otherwise it’s going to haunt me forever.’

  ‘What?’ I wrench myself free from her grip. ‘Why would you want to take me there?’

  ‘You need to see,’ she says, leaning over me.

  ‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘Someone shot at me earlier.’ Was it you?

  Her nose wrinkles in confusion, but I can see that she isn’t properly taking in my words. Her gaze drifts vaguely from mine towards the front door. ‘What? No, that’s … No. We need to go now. You need to see it for yourself or you’ll never believe me.’

  ‘We can’t go out there, Ro.’ Slowly I take my phone from my pocket and rest it on my knees.

  Rosie’s eyes are distant. Has she taken drugs, too? Her mouth opens and closes as though she’s at a loss, and she stares at various points in the room as if she can’t remember where she is.

  ‘What happened at the meeting?’ I ask, trying to pull her back to reality. I’m finding it hard to believe that she could have orchestrated any sort of targeted attack on me, judging by her current state. How long has she been drinking?

  ‘Typical rookie mistake,’ she says. ‘I went for one coffee with a guy there. I’d been talking about some heavy shit, you know? I needed a friend. Someone who isn’t you. But he turned out to be a terrible influence. He had a flask of whisky, which we drained pretty fast.’ It all sounds possible. I don’t detect any hint of a lie and I want to believe that she’s telling me the truth. My heart is reaching out for her, wanting her to just be Rosie and nothing else. ‘Then we took a few pills.’

  ‘What kind of pills?’ My fear fades into concern. I get to my feet and slide my phone back into my jeans pocket. ‘We should go to the hospital. Come on.’

  ‘I don’t know what they were, but finally everything is clear now. I know exactly where we need to go.’ She begins walking towards the open door, but I pull her back.

  ‘You’re not in any state to go out there. How are you going to find what you want to show me when you’re high?’

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ she says. ‘The forest is in my head now. What I did that night made sure of that. It’s scratched into my brain. Deeper than a tattoo. I couldn’t forget even if I wanted to, and a bit of booze and a few pills aren’t going to erase it. Believe me, I’ve tried to do just that.’

  She attempts to pull away, but I hold on tight.

  ‘Let’s sleep on it and wait until morning. It isn’t safe to go out there right now.’

  I expect her to fight me, but she doesn’t. Instead, she goes still, regarding me carefully. ‘You were right not to trust me, Heather. I have lied to you all these years, and I did go to meet Samuel the night he disappeared. Dad followed me.’

  I let her go. It takes a moment for her words to sink in. My heart thuds and the sound of the television comes through a fog. Dad was there that night? What does that mean? An image flashes into my mind of my father leaning over Samuel as he lies dead and cold in the mud. Could Dad be the person who helped her kill him? Not him, surely. Not another member of my family who lied to me.

  Rosie turns away from me and I watch her disappear into the darkness outside. For half a heartbeat I hesitate, and then I follow her, not even bothering to lock the door behind me. We’re already in danger. So what if someone breaks in? This house cannot be any more dangerous than what lies in wait for us out there. I don’t care any more. I just want answers.

  Rosie is already wandering down the road, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. While she’s preoccupied, I send a quick text message to Peter, telling him what’s happening and where I’m going. He’s the one person I can trust, and I’m relying on him to save me if I need to be saved.

  Rosie stops and waits for me, looking back over her shoulder, body rotated, eyes searching out mine. I tuck the phone into my pocket and break into a jog to catch up. Her gaze is still unfocused. I hope I’m doing the right thing by following her. Every inch of my skin seems to tingle, and not because of the chill in the night air.

  I have to know what happened to Samuel. I have to lay this mystery, and him, to rest once and for all.

  We pass the Campbells’ house, and I give it a quick scan. The upstairs lights are on and I’m almost certain that I see a curtain twitch. Are they watching us? I hug myself, sensing eyes all over in the darkness, waiting, watching.

  A million thoughts rush through my mind. What if the Campbells follow us into the woods? Or worse, what if they call someone else? Ian Dixon, or Reg at the pub. Who else wants us gone? Colin Murray? It could be anyone. The pale faces of the congregation at Mum’s funeral come back to me, and I imagine them all behind us now.

  I glance across at my sister, who could easily be lying about Dad’s involvement in Samuel’s disappearance. I keep telling myself that I’m paranoid and finding enemies in all directions, but at the same time, I have to admit to myself that I’m still afraid of Rosie.

  ‘Where are we going, Ro?’ I ask, deliberately keeping my voice calm and unthreatening.

  ‘We’re going to find the answer to all your questions,’ she says.

  ‘Are you going to tell me how Dad was involved in all of this?’

  She nods.

  My stomach flips over. Samuel’s face flashes into my mind. The answer could be his body, buried in a shallow grave. Morbid thoughts keep coming at me, faster than I can blink them away. Now I’m thinking about decomposition, and what Samuel might look like after all these years. I don’t want to remember the boy I loved that way.

  ‘Please,’ I say, tugging on Rosie’s hand. ‘I don’t want to see. Let’s go back to the cottage and you can tell me what happened instead. Please, Rosie.’

  Almost nonchalantly, she pulls her arm away and keeps walking. ‘You don’t understand, Hev. This is the only way I can get it all to end.’

  ‘Get what to end?’

  ‘The nightmares. The pain. The guilt. Your hatred.’

  Fear pulls me one way, while sympathy pulls me the other. What has my sister carried all these years?

  ‘I don’t hate you.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ she replies.

  ‘Okay, Rosie,’ I say, as we begin our path into Buckbell. ‘Take me to see whatever it is you need me to see.’

  A few silent tears roll down my cheeks as we head into the darkness of the woods. Suddenly I realise that this could be my best opportunity to say goodbye to Samuel forever.

  Rosie’s cold hand finds mine. I didn’t have time to put my coat on before we left, and I pushed my feet into flat pumps, which aren’t much protection against the damp ground. She’s shivering too. I put my arm around her, as though I’m the big sister.

  ‘We didn’t bring a torch, Ro. Do you know where you’re going?’

  Rosie pulls her mobile phone out of her bag and switches on the flashlight. My breath catches. For some reason I expected the spectral sight of a decaying Samuel to come into view.

  ‘We never talked about me finding your bracelet the day after Samuel dis
appeared. Did we?’

  ‘You didn’t want to,’ Rosie says. Her voice sounds as though it’s a million miles away, soft and airy.

  ‘I was too scared,’ I admit.

  ‘I thought I couldn’t tell you the truth because you didn’t want to know. Or because you couldn’t handle it. I’m not sure which. But none of that matters any more. Mum told you that she didn’t regret anything, and I don’t want to die drowning in my own shame. If I show you everything, there’ll be at least one thing I can stop regretting.’

  ‘Rosie, what did you do that night?’ My voice is choked. I can’t stop thinking about what she’s about to show me. My eyes fill with tears. With her slight frame pressed up against me, all I can think about is forgiving her for everything; hurting Samuel, wanting to hurt me, I don’t care. I still love her, and the saddest part of all this is that my fear has blocked me from showing that love for a decade.

  She begins to cry, a low whimpering sound. ‘If I tell you, I don’t think you’ll ever forgive me.’

  I hug her tighter, my own tears wetting my face. I haven’t cried in front of her since I was eight years old and I broke my wrist falling down the stairs. I no longer believe that she shot at me in the woods, and I no longer believe she wrote the note. Her guilt comes from the past. I feel it emanating from her as she huddles next to me.

  ‘You don’t know that, Ro. I might have forgiven you already.’

  She wipes away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘No. You have no idea what happened. And you will never, ever forgive me. It’s not in your nature, Hev. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe we can both go on without your forgiveness.’

  I don’t understand what she means. How can two people continue a relationship if one refuses to forgive the other? I begin to open my mouth to tell her that I will forgive her no matter what, but she speaks again.